Clean & Bright [retitled, revised]

Okay, this is hard.

My sweetie put on one of those Christmas-themed CDs, this one of the alleged “jazz” category. Well, Oscar Peterson was okay, so long as there wasn’t a recognizable melody. (Aieeeee…)

I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I’m afraid I have a visceral reaction against Christmas music. Enmity, even. The weird thing is that the feeling gets stronger every year instead of weaker, like you would think — you know, we get older and wiser, mellow out, etc. Or do we? There was a time in my life when I actually enjoyed singing carols, but I just can’t do it now. My lips won’t allow the words to form. I’m not a believer, and I need to look after my self. It’s like there’s this huge newness and resolve. I can’t ignore that. It wants honoring. I honestly don’t know where this comes from, and I’m having a devil of a time keeping things open and straight with my wife.

My Iowa girl… she’s anything but conventionally religious in her heart — vital, raging, and free — but Christmas means a lot to her. She gets teary for family and distant friends, likes to pull out all the old ornaments, remember who gave us what and when, that kind of thing. Her family Christmases were so wholesome and loving as to be from another planet to me. When we first got together, my emotional baggage and I weren’t such a good fit at those gatherings. There were several times when I should have been taken out and shot, but ultimately, that was just a sideshow, with me as the freak. Infinitely greater than that was the energy and love of the gathering families, and this is what she misses, even now.

It’s not all love and nostalgia, however. She also gets wound up tighter than a busted pocketwatch this time of year, what with hurrying around to buy presents that need to be packed and mailed, and is usually involved with some kind of musical performance as well. It gets busy. Her blood pressure shoots up, she gets exhausted to the point of staggering, and for most of the years we’ve been married (when her parents were still alive), we added a 2,000 mile winter road trip to the mix.

That’s quite a package, obviously, and dealing with it has never been easy. But there’s something demanding deeper awareness now. She feels it, too, and makes adjustments here and there, but a deeper shift is coming. It has to, on her part and mine.

Possibly related to all of the above is the fact that I find myself focusing on the winter solstice this year more than ever. That’s the beginning of the astronomical year, the true New Year, and I like to feel the change right then, when the sun is reborn. The significance of the solstice is enormous in this hemisphere, and yet so many people simply miss it. Perhaps that’s changing (I’d like to think so). Imagine how strong and solid it would feel if our calendar moved in step with the sun and the moon. That’s how it used to be, and when we lost that, we lost our connection to the cosmos.

The precise moment of the 2007 solstice will be Saturday, 1:08 a.m. EST (06:08 UT). That would be 11:08 p.m. MST Friday night, a few hours after we come home from hearing Bone Orchard at the Taos Inn. I’m not sure whether that has anything to do with it, but it might: my plan is to allow myself to be reborn.

WHAT???

Yes, that’s right: I’ll be relaxed, receptive, and open. If the timing opens up the circuits, fine. Call it my personal “Christmas.” What I give myself is permission to drop the past and start anew. I give myself permission to be new. I’m quite serious, at any rate. That moment (and the days that follow) will be, well, holy for me.

I like that. Why the hell not?

Related posts:

1. Remarkable
2. Johnny & the Buffalos
3. Hating Christmas, or All’s Well That Ends Well [revised]
4. “Lumpy! What did he die of?” [revised]
5. New Year Catching Up [Revised]